Songs of Experience

* * *

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

by, Stanley Kunitz
(sent to me by my friend, my friend!, Kelly)

***
Dear SoE (Songs of Experience) readers,

I just came across a line in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead which made me put down the book and open my laptop:

“A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought – the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider.”

Indeed. For nearly two years now I have been posting my musings on this blog, thinking all the time it was a conversation of two (you and me)….but now I see, now I know, it has been three. You, me, and God. Atheists, of course, will disagree … but to them I ask, “Can you prove God isn’t eavesdropping?”

During the last six months, a patron saint (of sorts ) in the running community has been sponsoring Songs of Experience. Tom Raynor, of Fleet Feet Sports, Inc., took a chance on SoE as a viable/legitimate venue for advertising. You readers were the specified, target market-audience … runners clicking through, hopefully, on the little Fleet Feet logo at the top right of your computer screen. Apparently, there weren’t enough click-throughs to warrant a continuation of Fleet Feet’s investment, so I will no longer be receiving any compensation for my efforts.

Six months ago this wouldn’t have bothered me. But now it does. As Virginia Woolf explains:

“My aunt, Mary Beton, I must tell you, died by a fall from her horse when she was riding out to take the air in Bombay. The news of my legacy reached me one night about the same time that the act was passed that gave votes to women. A solicitor’s letter fell into the post–box and when I opened it I found that she had left me five hundred pounds a year for ever. Of the two—the vote and the money—the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important.”

The money is important – for legitimacy. I learned this at the age of 22, fresh out of college, when I signed a sizable contract with New Balance and was able to became a professional runner. Without the money, I would have been merely a passionate hobbyist.

I don’t think I can go back to being a hobby blogger, so I am asking you – and God – in this three-way conversation … is it worth it for me to continue?

I truly don’t know.

signing off for now,

joan nesbit mabe